the hand that fate dealt us
by hellishtrollop
Summary: They are sisters first, beyond anything else. They have always been sisters first.


**i.**

When Joanna first sees Wendy for the first time in what seems like too many years to count (but she counted anyway, she always does) it was first shock, and then exasperation when she notices her sister is sitting curled up like a cat, a _naked_ cat, on her porch chair. And then it's confusion, and when she says _you don't look so good_ and realizes Wendy really, truly doesn't (she looks like she hasn't slept in forever but Joanna knows better. she always looks that way after she dies.) it's worry; and then it's confusion again.

Wendy does that irritating thing where she makes light of the situation at hand.

"Well I died this morning," Wendy says, pouting; "—so I'm sorry if my hair isn't perfect."

Joanna wonders offhandedly in the back of her mind _how_ she died. Surely not syphilis again.

But the concern is still there, even when Wendy gets up and welcomes herself into the house.

The concern will always be there.

**ii.**

_Does that mean you're staying?_ she asks, when everything seems about to unravel and her girls — her precious daughters, the ones she's seen live time and time again, and die time and time again, and be taught magic time and time again only for her to end up in the same place all over again; in a graveyard somewhere, kneeling before their gravestones and thinking _why, why, why_ — have a better chance of dying by that shifter's hand than living a full and complete life. and if Wendy notices the hope in her voice, she doesn't mention it. And if Wendy notices the relief on her face, in her eyes when she replies, she doesn't mention it.

_Have you ever seen me run away from a fight?_ That's how Wendy replies, and even if she only smiles and doesn't say a word, she thinks _no, no I haven't._ Because it's the truth. Wendy never runs. Ever.

That's her sister. She's always made light of the things she can't control; always acted like she _can_ control them even when she knows she really can't. It's one of the things she adores most about the woman. Wendy's her younger sister; and yet, she's so strong and seemingly _invulnerable_. She has complete faith in Wendy, certainly; but she doesn't know if faith is enough. Not anymore.

Her sister tugs a hand idly through raven tresses, leans forward and places the other over her own; squeezing, briefly. Tears sting her eyes and she wants to collapse there and then in Wendy's arms, wants to just _cry_; but she thinks better of it, and after a moment, Wendy offers one of her infectious friendly grins and stands, walking out of the room — and leaving her cup of tea behind.

Joanna looks down at the cards before her and deals them again.

**iii.**

Argentium is painful, more painful than anything she's ever experienced in her life, right beneath witnessing her daughters die time and time again and being able to do absolutely nothing to stop it; but the treatments are worse. So much worse. They leave her tired and panting, fingers weakly grasping around Wendy's own; they leave her aching and sore and dizzy and foggy, and before that she knows only repetitive waves of pain, and screams that she silences into her pillow.

Wendy is always there, her one constant in this entire mess, and she has never been more thankful.

She curls against Wendy in her bed afterwards, shaking. The whole room is spinning and her tongue feels thick and heavy in her mouth, and she feels so terribly nauseous, but Wendy croons to her, some nonsense like she's a child, and strokes her hair, and she feels slightly better.

Only slightly, but that's enough.

"Shh. I know it hurts, Joanna. Just relax, alright? I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere."

There's a knot in her chest, in her throat, growing and manifesting into something more; tears that sting her eyes and a sob that is torn free of her before she can possibly reel it in, and then her shoulders are shaking and she is crying, truly crying, and Wendy holds her tighter.

"Oh, no. No, please don't cry. You know that I cry whenever you cry." Joanna laughs through her tears, but only because she knows it's true. "Shh. It doesn't hurt that much, does it? I'm sorry, Joanna. Don't cry, please. It's alright. I'm here, and you won't have to get another treatment for a few days now."

"Thank you, Wendy." Her voice trembles, tearful. "I don't know how I would do this without you."

"Well," Wendy says, gently brushing her fingers through Joanna's hair one last time and pushing her back only to look at her, wiping her tears away with a thumb. "You won't ever have to find out."

**iv.**

The first time Wendy watches her go through a treatment (she avoids such a situation like the plague, usually; to hear her sister's screams from downstairs is enough), she's crying before it ends. Just watching Joanna writhe and shriek on the bed as those _things_ slither into her bloody wrists is enough to make her want to vomit and sob all at once. She can't breathe, can't hear anything but her sister's screams and cannot see anything but the way her back arches painfully, tugging against her restraints.

They're necessary, Wendy knows, but she still wants to free her, wants to gather her in her arms and never let her go. This is her sister, and she is dying right in front of her eyes.

And she has never imagined it, never thought something like this could happen.

But it has.

"Can't you do anything to make it less painful?" she asks, and if Victor notices the hitch in her voice and the tears on her cheeks, he doesn't mention it, only shaking his head in reply, and she has never, ever hated him more than she does now.

The Argentium hurts Joanna, but she knows the treatments hurt worse, and that fact is written out plain on her face, the way it twists in agony. They have minutes to go still, and she's certain that she is not the only one who feels like those minutes stretch on for hours. Each treatment is thirty minutes, but the time does not pass quickly at all. She climbs onto the bed alongside her sister, and Victor knows better than to try and stop her. Joanna screams and screams beside her, and Wendy avoids touching her arms as she lays her head on her older sister's chest, stroking her hair.

"It's alright," she says, and it's such a lie that she wants to say the opposite, wants to spit out the truth _it will never be alright never again _and Joanna knows that, but she says nothing, convulsing.

Her sister is crying and screaming and Wendy only wishes that she was feeling the pain that Joanna felt, only just so she could say _I know how you feel_ and mean it with every ounce of her being.

Instead, she turns Joanna's head so that the woman is looking at her, not up at Victor's face, or at the things that crawl inside of her body, and she smiles, tears and all. "It's okay. I'm here, Joanna. I'm here."

She swallows, tries to breathe through the knot in her throat. "I'll always be here."

**v.**

When Alex leaves, Wendy sits with Joanna in her bedroom. If she hadn't caught the tears on the older woman's face, she wouldn't have known that her sister was crying at all; she was completely silent and unmoving, save for the slight tremble in her shoulders.

Wendy sighs, soft and long. They have this annoying sibling connection: whenever Joanna hurts, Wendy can almost physically _feel_ it; and so, she too wants to cry, if only because Joanna is upset, and she has never enjoyed seeing her sister hurt. She has half a mind to chase Alex back to New York just to slap some sense into her; but in the end, it wouldn't do any good. She knows that as well as anyone.

"I'm sorry, Jo," she whispers in her sister's ear, stroking the matriarch's thick curls.

This is where Joanna seems to give in, seeming physically crushed under the pressure of keeping her cries bottled; she trembles, one long shiver wracking her body, and then she slumps against Wendy with a broken-hearted sob, burying her face in her shoulder. "I screwed it all up, Wendy," she keeps saying, and Wendy doesn't understand because Joanna has never told her about her and Alex, but she does not ask questions. Not now.

"Shush," she murmurs gently, pressing a hand to the back of Joanna's head. "Shh. You didn't screw anything up, sweetheart." Joanna shakes her head against her shoulder helplessly in reply, pulling away after a long moment.

"No, you don't understand."

"Well, maybe that's because you never told me about you and Alex," she replies without really thinking about it, but softens her reprimand with a humored grin. Joanna wipes her tears away, but the attempt is futile at best; they simply keep coming. When she doesn't speak again, Wendy presses a kiss to Joanna's cheek.

"Thank you," says Joanna, and Wendy's heart contracts painfully, like a hand has reached out and tightened around it slowly, constricting.

Wendy offers a smile, glad for the fact that Joanna can't see her, because the smile is in no way _happy_. "You know, if you want me to chase her down all the way to New York and kick her ass for hurting you like this, I definitely will do just that."

Joanna laughs. It's a strangled sort of sobbing sound, but it _is_ a laugh, and Wendy's lips quirk at the corners, victorious.

**vi.**

There are things to think about, in this moment. There is Tommy. There is, of course, Freya and Ingrid, who are dead (dead dead dead dead _dead_) and never coming back unless she performs the darkest of rituals to do so. There is Frederick, who is as sad as Wendy, but not as sad as Joanna. No one can be as sad as Joanna in this moment; Joanna, who has seen her children grow time and time again, who has seen her children die time and time again. Wendy cannot imagine the pain she feels.

They are her nieces, but they are not her daughters. And she mourns, too, but Joanna mourns the most of all. She proves that by carving her wrists in the bathtub.

So all she truly _can_ do is comfort her.

She doesn't waste time with things like taking her boots off before climbing onto the bed behind Joanna; she curls her arms tight around her sister, smooths her hair back with a hand, kisses her cheek and tries — oh, _god_, does she try — not to cry. "I love you, Joanna," she murmurs, "and you're not leaving me." She knows it's selfish. They both know it's selfish. But ultimately, it's the right thing to do.

"_Why_?" Joanna's voice is nothing more than a mournful cry, torn from the depths of her throat. It makes Wendy's heart hurt beyond imagination. No, she does not know exactly what Joanna feels like, but she would have if her sister had died. Her sister is all she has left, and to lose her would be like losing herself. They are _sisters_, reunited after decades and decades. She will not lose Joanna again.

She _can't_.

"Because," she says, combing Joanna's hair back, curling herself around the woman. She tries to bring as much warmth as possible to the other witch, but she knows that it barely registers. "Because I love you, Joanna," she whispers softly, "And I don't want to see you dead. I don't know what I would do without you, Joanna. And I'm a selfish bitch. You can say it. But I love you too much to let you go."

A part of her wonders, irritably, when the sedative is going to take control. She can't take much more of this without bursting out into tears.

"I wanted to die," murmurs Joanna, and Wendy can see the tears drip down her face as she closes her eyes. "And you took that away from me. You took my only chance to see my girls away from me. I can't do it again. I can't." And then her prayers are answered, and Joanna falls asleep.

Wendy tries not to cry.

Naturally, she fails horribly, like she failed horribly at trying to keep their family together and _alive_.

**vii.**

This time, dying really _is_ like falling asleep.

Perhaps a little more sudden than that, because she's certainly never fallen asleep after muttering Latin over the corpse of her boyfriend, but there's no pain. Just a very sudden lack of air in her lungs, and she can't even spare the time to panic. She's died so many times before that she's _used_ to it. Syphilis certainly hadn't been peaceful. And being eaten by a crocodile had been horrifying and all other words that meant _not good_; she'd had nightmares of those teeth closing around her for months afterwards. Being stabbed in Joanna's kitchen by her sister's doppelganger hadn't been very pleasant, and being killed by her niece certainly hadn't been nice, either.

This is her most peaceful death yet, and that's ironic, isn't it, because it's her _last_ death, the very last one she'll ever have. There's no waking up with a sore throat and a dry tongue and the taste of blood in her mouth this time (and, honestly, once you've been eaten by a crocodile, there's nothing that can possibly be or feel worse than being mangled to death by one — she hadn't gotten up for days afterwards, and when she finally had, it was at the bottom of a swamp); this is _the end_, and she doesn't know how to feel about that. She knows what Joanna would say. She knows what Ingrid would say. She knows what Freya would say, and most importantly, she knows what Tommy would say.

They would all say something along the lines of _no_, but there's no one here to stop her. They'll find her corpse later on, and hopefully, Tommy will be alive, and it will have all worked out for the best, no matter what any of them would have said or not said. She doesn't care about that, not now, because she's dead. For good, this time.

She wakes up with fire in her blood, in her veins, heat crawling down her spine in sickening tendrils; but there's a coldness in her, and yet she still feels...remarkably alive. _God, let this be a nightmare_, she thinks as she looks around, at the fire all around her. That was what the heat had been, then. The fire looks like it's closing in around her, and her lungs are screaming and her throat is aching.

_Where am I?_ The thought forms into words on her mouth, like the filter between has been completely cut off, but even before she thinks it, she knows exactly where she is and why she is here.

And for the first time, Wendy wishes she was back with Joanna and Freya and Ingrid, and not _here_.

"Good to see you again, sister."


End file.
